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OVERVIEW

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Brief Synopsis

A miner fights his way across Death Valley to beat out the competition.

In turn-of-the-century Death Valley, twenty mule teams hauled borax across the inferno of the desert floor. As the borax deposits dwindle, the Desert Borax Company faces bankruptcy and is unable to pay Skinner Bill Bragg and the other drivers their wages. Unable to pay his rent, Bill is locked out of his room at the Furnace Flat saloon by the proprietor, Josie Johnson. Josie's pretty young daughter Jean feels stifled by life in Furnace Flat, and although she is courted by Mitch, a clerk at the borax company, she longs for the romance of the city. Josie's prayers are answered with the arrival of Stag Roper, a slick city dude who persuades the bank president to extend the borax company's note in hopes of discovering a mother load of the mineral. When Stag discovers that Bill has found a bag full of borax crystals on the dehydrated body of Chuckwalla, a prospector who perished in the desert, he blackmails Bill, who is wanted for murder under the name of Ambrose Murphy. Fearful that Stag will expose him, Bill agrees to search for Chuckwalla's claim. The next day, Bill and his swamper, Piute Pete, follow Chuckwalla's trail to the claim and are met by gunfire from Mitch, the prospector's partner. After wounding Mitch, Bill returns to town and tells Stag of Mitch's resistance. Meanwhile, Josie discovers that Jean is planning to elope with Stag, and after locking her daughter in her room, Josie orders Stag at gunpoint to get out of town. In response, Stag shoots Josie and rides off with his partner, Salters, to steal Mitch's claim. Blaming himself for Josie's shooting, Bill recruits Pete and pursues Stag into the desert, where he finds Mitch unconscious, left to die by Stag. After a shootout in which the horses and Pete are killed, Bill exacts his revenge on Stag and then sends Mitch back to town on his mule, Buttercup, risking his own life by remaining behind on the fiery desert floor. Sometime later, Mitch is appointed vice president of the borax company and leaves for Los Angeles with his bride Josie, while Bill, now recovered, learns that he has been granted amnesty.